My Girl is a Switchblade
by rednecksaints
Summary: Daryl and Beth flee the scene after watching Negan torture the group. For Beth, escaping means freedom. But for Daryl, it means he chose her over everyone else he loves.Did he make a mistake? Can he learn to cope with his decision? And can Beth regain the sense of humanity that was taken from her? This is where the story begins...
1. Chapter 1 - Blood

"Keep running!" he tells her.

They push further into the woods at full speed, ducking beneath branches and sliding over the slick surface of freshly fallen leaves. It's cold. She doesn't have a jacket, and the tear in her shirt exposes most of her left shoulder. There's a trail of dried blood down her front from her collarbone where she hit the pavement seconds before escaping. It was a narrow gap of opportunity, but they made it. Luck was on their side.

It takes hours, but eventually they clear the trees. They're too far from Alexandria to go back now, so they have no other choice but to move forward - away from it all. Leave it behind.

"I can't go anymore," she says, clutching the stitch in her side, bent over and gasping for air. "We need to find a car."

He stops beside her and doesn't say anything at first, but after a few seconds he nods and begins walking at a slower pace. She's grateful. After all, she knows he doesn't want to slow down. If it were solely up to him, he'd keep running all night. Just like he did when she was first taken. Because that's who he is. And that's what he does.

Daryl Dixon does not give up on the people he cares about.

When they finally come across a car that's in drivable condition, he takes the wheel and steers them towards the outskirts of Virginia. They drive for almost another hour on the 495 until they literally run out of road. He parks the car at Chesapeake Beach, then they sit quietly in the still and salty air until they find the nerve to open the doors and stretch their aching legs.

"We're in Maryland," Beth whispers softly. The ocean breeze carries her words lazily, and it masks the tired sandpapery feel they leave behind in her throat.

It's dark, but he's watching the waves. Everything in front of them is open. A vast intricate absis ready to swallow them whole. She thinks for moment that it would be okay if it did. After tonight - after feeling so small and worthless - she'd give anything to be swallowed up by something that big.

The first house they try is unlocked, so they take tentative steps through the door. It's abandoned, not unlike everything else in the world they now know. A body is slumped against the cabinets on the floor in the kitchen. It's long dead with a bullet in its skull, so Daryl drags it outside and dumps it in the sand.

It doesn't matter. It did. But not anymore.

Beth checks the other rooms. Everything's coated in orange and green pastels and trimmed with shells or dotted with boats and other nautical themed designs. It's not remotely familiar to either of them, but because it's so different, it might just work.

As Daryl disappears into one of the bedrooms, Beth finds the bathroom and closes the door. There's a candle and a set of matches on the counter, so she lights the wick and the small room is filled with the scent of vanilla. She looks down at the sink and checks the faucet. No running water, of course, but there are towels folded neatly in the corner, so she takes one and starts scrubbing feverishly at her hands. She can't get the blood off. It's a lot stickier than she ever thought blood could be. She's bled before - cuts, scrapes, and broken bones - and in the recent years Walker blood has become a constant for comparison, but all of that is different. It's thick and warm. This is human. And it isn't hers.

 _I would never kill someone._

When she said it, it wasn't a lie. She believed it. She didn't think she was capable. But after tonight… now she knows she is. She's done it. She's taken a life, and even though it was the first, she knows it won't be the last. This is a gateway to the rest of her new mechanical existence. To survive means she has to do things, and _goddammit_ … she made it.

Beth looks at her face in the mirror. There are lines around her eyes that weren't there before. Dark circles, too - the ones that make one look sunken and twice their age. She feels like she's aged ten years, but given everything she's been through, it's not surprising.

Nothing happened the way it was supposed to. After they found the moonshine shack, things were supposed to be better. They were supposed to be happy. She wasn't supposed to be kidnapped, taken to a hospital in Atlanta and treated like a slave. She wasn't supposed to have to escape and get captured _again_ by someone else that made feeling like a slave seem easy. They weren't supposed to watch Glenn die. Or watch Maggie lose the baby. Daryl wasn't supposed to have his last hope be a man that did nothing but betray him.

She guesses it was luck that made Dwight change his mind.

Or something else entirely.

He let her go when no one else was looking, and when she darted behind the RV, avoiding the light from the cars and the moon shining like a spotlight on all of the horror she'd been forced to witness, she collided with Daryl. And they ran.

They didn't look back. They didn't think twice about the people they were leaving behind. The only time they were nearly sent off track was when one of Negan's men spotted them a few yards away from the group. He was pissing on a tree trunk, and before he had time to call for backup, Beth grabbed Daryl's knife from its sheath and stabbed the man in the throat.

There was so much blood.

She looks away from the mirror and flexes her fingers. There's even more red staining the arm she used to wield the knife. She made sure to let it sink in deep, because she'd recognized him.

He was the one that ripped her clothes.

She hears Daryl moving around in the other room, so Beth exits the bathroom and saunters into the hall. There's a light coming from the living room. She follows it and finds more candles illuminating the edges of the sofa and the coffee table against the darkness.

Beth manages a smile. "You found candles."

Daryl grunts and drops his crossbow to the floor. It falls with a muffled thud on the plush carpet.

"I lit one in the bathroom," she adds. "It's vanilla."

He remains silent.

She notices the way he's carrying himself. His injured shoulder must be killing him, so she moves to take a look at it, but he shoves her away.

"It's fine," he forces. It's the first words he's spoken to her since they left the forest.

"Why're you shutting me out?"

"I ain't," he disagrees. "It's fine. Tha's all I said."

He shrugs and sits on the sofa, elbows on his knees. Beth takes the edge of the coffee table.

"We made it," she tells him.

He can't look at her. He forces his eyes all over the room, staring at the carpet and the wallpaper, but not at her. There's something on his face that she can't quite put her finger on, but she's seen it before. When the prison fell. After the governor murdered her father.

 _Maybe I coulda done something._

After a while, he drops his head into his hands. Then, with his focus on his feet, he asks openly, "What've we done?"

She shakes her head. "Nothin'."

He looks up at her, and there's a wild look in his eyes. He's disappointed in her answer, but she can't see how.

"You think that's a good thing?"

Her mouth falls open, but she can't find any suitable words she thinks will please him.

"I don't know what I was thinkin'," he continues. "I just knew I had to get you out of there." He pauses, waiting for her to comment, but she's still stunned into silence. "What's going to happen to the others?"

"I-I don't know."

" _Beth_."

He says her name like it's vat of acid being dumped on his wounds.

He can't seriously blame her for all of this.

"We'll figure it out," she insists.

"No we won't," he counters. "We're hundreds of miles away now. We can't go back. They're probably all dead." He stands up and begins pacing the room. He begins murmuring their names under his breath like a chant. "Rick and Michonne. _Carl_. What the _fuck_? What about Judith?"

"Daryl, just stop it!" Beth declares, rising to her feet as well. "It's not gonna do any good beatin' yourself up about it now. I know it's my fault, okay? You put me first, and you shouldn't have." She fights back a surge of tears threatening to close her throat. "I'm sorry."

Beth storms outside before the trembling in her bottom lip gives her away. She marches across the beach, boots sinking further into the sand with every step. Eventually, she decides to discard her shoes completely, and she runs barefoot until she hits the edge of the tide. The cold water hits her toes, and it's like an electric shock to her senses. It wakes her up, forcing everything to come rushing out of her as steady and as strong as the waves in front of her. She breaks down, and she cries. Through the mist of tears blurring her vision, she can see the blood and dirt from her clothes washing away in the water as she collapses to her knees. The sun slowly rises along the horizon making everything pink and sparkly. Despite the five ton boulder that's weighing on her chest, she can't help but feel a tiny bit of hope as she takes it all in.

They got away.

Daryl might think of it as abandonment, but maybe, over time, he'll learn to understand. He doesn't know what she's been through. He doesn't get how important it is that he's the one she ended up with.

Yeah, she left Maggie behind. But right now, with tiny grains of sand falling between her fingers and the warmth of the sun on her face… she doesn't care.


	2. Chapter 2 - Sky

There's a tiny blue teacup with yellow daisies on the shelf in the kitchen. It's got a chip in it, but she chooses it over the others in spite of its flaw, because she knows it was probably someone's favorite.

When she made the walk back to the house, the sun was high enough to cast light in the windows, so there was no way to tell if the candles inside were still burning. When she walked in, Daryl was lying back on the sofa. His arm was folded over his eyes, but she knew he wasn't asleep, because when she closed the door behind her, she saw his fingers twitch.

He's been in the same position since she sat down at the kitchen table. He's still not asleep, but she can see that he's trying desperately to escape his current reality. Whether that be because of her or the present location, she can't be certain, but nevertheless he's no more grumpy than usual.

The reason why she needed the teacup was because she found a box of teabags.

Now that she's selected her drinkware, however, she still has to wait for the water she collected from the ocean to boil and steam. She learned this from her father. It involves heating water in a pot over a fire, but the trick is to use a glass in the center of it. By turning the cover upside down and placing it over the glass, all the water vapor that collects on the surface of the cover drips down into the glass, leaving everything that isn't drinkable behind in the pot. It'll take a while, but it's the only thing she could think of given their circumstances. She thought Daryl would find it clever, but he still isn't interested in anything she's doing.

She's watching him now, instead of the pot.

He's still not acknowledging that she left in the first place, but he had to have cared a little, or else he wouldn't have left the door unlocked. She wrings out her hair as she pulls her focus back to her current project. It's wet from her swim in the ocean. That's what it turned into. After sitting there staring at the sunrise, she decided to actually do something useful and wash herself. And her clothes. There was no one else around, so she stripped to her underwear and took her time wading in the water. In that time, she reflected on what lay ahead of her - the fight she was more than likely going to be walking back into when she finally decided to return - but it had been extremely disappointing to come back and find _this._

He isn't fighting. He isn't doing anything.

He's ignoring her, specifically, but does that really count as something?

She makes annoying little tapping sounds with her fingers on the surface of the table, but still, nothing. He shifts, but that isn't enough.

She doesn't mean to think about it, but her memory betrays her. Something snaps her back like a rubber band to the time she spent in Negan's camp. The man that kept watch outside her room often slept in the same position, and seeing Daryl like that sends an involuntary shudder down her spine.

Most of the time, it's easy not to think about it. Even though it comes in flashes, it's not that difficult to shove it all away. Every so often, though, when she closes her eyes, every second of the past year _whooshes_ by like a freight train in her head.

The hospital. Dawn. Escaping with Noah. Driving to Richmond to find his family and getting separated by a herd of Walkers in the night. It was the second time she'd been split from the comfort and safety of a partner on the road, and just like the first time, she didn't long before she was taken.

Where she ended up was worse the second time around.

When she'd woken up at Grady Memorial in that hospital bed, things were strange and unfamiliar, but she didn't feel an immediate sense of danger. She was afraid, yes. But she'd been treated for wounds and given medicine. She knew that the people responsible didn't want to kill her. They'd saved her life. Even though she paid for it later in hard labor, it wasn't nearly as bad as what Negan's men made her do.

Waking up in that bed was much worse. She hadn't been treated. There weren't IVs or bandages marking what they'd done to try and save her. She woke up in much worse condition that when she'd passed out, and the first clue was that her clothes were missing.

The water is boiling over the edge of the pot, and it doesn't catch her attention until she hears Daryl sit up suddenly and point her to it. She moves quickly, grabbing the handle with a cloth and setting the pot in the sink. She douses the fire on the stove and waits for the water to cool before reaching in and taking the glass now full of drinking water. Instead of using it for tea, she pours it into a jug on the counter. She'll go get more water from the ocean later. They need something to drink more than Beth needs to make tea.

"What're you doin?" Daryl asks.

He's gotten up to stretch, but she still doubts he ever fell asleep. It's almost noon given the sun's high position in the sky. The room is fully lit, and the color is even more preposterous in the daytime.

"We needed water," she tells him.

Daryl takes note of the pot in the sink and the jug now a quarter of the way full sitting on the counter. He makes a _humph_ sound and then goes outside.

Beth stares unfocused at the empty glass in her hand. If this is how their time is going to be spent, she won't be able to stand it. He has to at least look at her. And when he does, he has to stop seeing her as something he regrets.

...⧫…

He's sitting in a lawn chair when she finally decides to go outside and join him. The sight is peculiar at best, but it sets her at ease. Daryl Dixon with his legs sprawled out in the sand would give anyone the giggles.

The sky is clear and the sun is bright, but it does little good against the cold air coming off the ocean. She never thawed out completely from her morning swim, but now that her hair is dry, it's not so terrible to sit and enjoy the breeze. Plus, she found a baggy sweatshirt in one of the closets with _Maryland_ written across the chest. It falls nearly to her knees, and as she sits down in the sand next to him, she pulls it over her jeans, tucking herself into a tight little ball to keep warm.

Daryl doesn't look cold. He's still wearing the same clothes and has obviously neglected to clean himself up. Making himself comfortable doesn't seem to be on his top list of priorities, but he's the one that brought them here. He's the one that chose this place.

"I never thought you were dead," he says.

His voice startles her because she wasn't expecting him to speak. "What?"

He clears his throat and keeps his eyes on the sky above him. "When everyone else gave up, after you were taken in that car, I never thought you were dead."

She doesn't have words. Actually, she does, but she can't say them. She can't string them together, because she already knew what he's telling her now. And she can't believe he feels the need to make it clear.

"I know," she lets out.

"I don't think you do." He turns his head, but he still can't look at her. "I spent an entire year tellin' myself that you were out there. Somewhere. I had no clue you were so close." His voice catches, and it's hard for her to keep listening, but she does. "Beth, I missed you so much," he says, "but I don't know if I can live with what I've done."

His confession is like ice in her brain. She swallows hard, forcing everything that's trying to urge it's way up her throat back down into her stomach. She hasn't eaten, so there can't be much to throw up, but she feels it coming, and it burns like battery acid as it descends. Her eyes blink rapidly, as if clearing away the sight of the world in front of her will make it better.

Why does it hurt?

It isn't supposed to hurt anymore.

Beth fights the desperate need to stand and remains where she is. This time, she isn't going to storm off onto the beach and sulk like a little girl. She fought her way back from hell, and she'll be damned if anyone tries to knock her back down again. Not even Daryl can force her backward.

"You didn't have to come with me," she states the obvious, but she knows what she's going to hear in return.

"I had to make a choice," he tells her defiantly, confirming her prediction. "I couldn't lose you again."

She remembers the look on his face when she found him. It changed everything.

Beforehand, she'd been crouching in the back of a van and trying desperately to see what was happening outside against the glare of the light through the cracks in the door. She'd been able to see Glenn get Negan's bat - that she had a clear picture of because the men standing guard outside the van weren't obstructing her view - but she hadn't been able to see Maggie. She heard her screaming and assumed the worst. It was Dwight that told Beth about all the blood. She knew what that meant. The baby was gone. Everything Maggie had left to live for was gone.

Yet Beth couldn't find it in herself to go back for her sister after she was freed. She'd had time. It was minimal, but it was available. Dwight led her far enough into the trees that it could have been minutes before Maggie and the others were forced into the RV and driven back to Alexandria. Somewhere in that gap, surely Beth could have done something to let Maggie know she was there. That she was alive.

But she didn't. And she still doesn't know why.

"How did you get out?" she asks Daryl, trying to pull the conversation in a different direction. There're still answers to questions she hasn't received yet, and she needs to fill in the remaining blanks.

"Negan told Dwight to put me in a separate car," he says. "They were taking me to their camp, but Dwight… he…"

"He let you go?"

"We left before the others were loaded up. He got far enough ahead that he could stop on the side of the road. He dragged me into the woods. I thought he was gonna kill me. After everything, I thought he was finally gonna get his way." Daryl lifts his chin. "He just left me there. He had to have known I wasn't gonna stick around, but then I saw you."

"He let me go, too."

Daryl tilts his head in surprise and actually meets her eyes. "What?"

"It was Dwight," she tells him. "After Glenn, when everyone was distracted, he pulled me out of the van and let me go. He told me to run and that someone would be waiting for me."

"Did you see what happened to everyone else?"

She stammers. "I- umm…" Her focus falls on her hands now twisting in the fabric of the sweatshirt. "No."

The guilt washes over his face again, and this time she can't steer the conversation far enough away to prevent it. He gets up from the chair, struggling at first to gain traction against the sand, but when he's on his feet it doesn't take long for him to speak again.

"I'm going to clean up and try to find some food. You should go inside."

She doesn't wait to see if he watches her go. She just gets up and goes back to the house, falling right back into the rhythm of doing what she's told.


	3. Chapter 3 - Rain

_She feels his hand clamp tight around her neck. She tries to focus on it, let the feeling of near suffocation drown out the slick sensation of his cock moving inside her. He spit on her. Made sure she was good and wet this time since the other times hadn't been as pleasant for him. She'd bled everywhere from being so dry, but what could she have done? Did he expect anything else?_

 _He's almost done. Three more thrusts should do it._

 _God. He's not even that hard. It feels like a worm squirming inside her._

 _He stops. Shutters. Then he's off of her. Rolling her onto her stomach with his boot like a ragdoll and slapping her ass. She waits until she hears the door close and lock before she lifts her head._

 _Her hair is in knots. It clings to her face from where she's been sweating. She's likely to make herself sick if this keeps up. It's dark and dank in this tiny little box they keep her in. It's like a cage, but there aren't any bars. Just walls. Solitary confinement._

 _She collects her dress from the floor and slips it over her head. It's the only thing she has, and it doesn't do much for warmth, but it covers what it needs to when necessary. She pulls her knees up to her chin, bites the skin of her thigh until it bleeds, then watches as the mark leaves a trail of red down to the mattress._

 _She lets the sting of it carry her somewhere far away._

...⧫...

Beth startles awake from the sound of something heavy falling onto the coffee table.

She sits up, eyes wild and fists ready to land a punch in whatever's about to attack. But it's just Daryl. He's standing beside her drenched in rain. It drips from his hair and lands on the carpet making little dark spots that look like miniature footprints. There's a tote stained with blood falling open on the surface of the table, and she doesn't have to look inside to know the contents. The smell hits her hard. It's fish. Lots of them. Daryl must have been busy.

"Your watch," he grumbles.

It's his turn to sleep. She must have been out all day. It felt like seconds since she'd closed her eyes, but it's dark outside now, and her body feels well rested. Not her mind, though.

She grabs her knife and slips it into its sheath on her belt. She's still wearing the baggy sweatshirt and jeans from that morning and she decides against changing. Since the sun is gone, it'll definitely be cold, so she takes the liberty of grabbing a blanket from the couch to bring with her.

It doesn't make much sense that they're still doing this. There isn't much of a need to keep watch when they haven't seen another person, dead or alive, since they arrived. The beach is barren. Hills and mounds of sand stretch from left to right as far as she can see. There're one or two broken pails and shovels left behind, buried under what once might have been an elaborate castle. Now it's just dirt. This beach was long abandoned before the dead had their opportunity to claim it. Whoever lived here must have had fair warning to evacuate before things got ugly.

Luck. More goddamned luck.

The isolation of it all reminds her of the farm. She doesn't think about that place much anymore, but whenever the thought comes to her, it's feels like an old friend. It's all just memories now. Imagining the ones that didn't make it trying to forge their way to the prison, it makes her laugh. Her mom and brother. Patricia. Otis. _Jimmy_ \- Oh _god_ , she'd forgotten all about that boy - they thought things were bad then, but they got out before they'd surpassed even the first circle in hell. They were in limbo. After all, _Hell is empty and all the devils are here._

Beth finds a fairly flat patch of sand just over the hill beyond the house and spreads out the blanket. She sits with her legs outstretched, waiting and watching for something to happen. Something to get the ball rolling and force some change in what feels stagnant. None of this is supposed to be fun, but she at least thought Daryl would have helped to keep her occupied. She just wants to talk. Like they used to. It used to be easy. Now… it's like they've gone back in time. They never burned down that house. Never found that funeral home. Never almost had whatever it was that had been growing between them at that kitchen table in the candle light. Daryl's doing what Daryl does best. Regressing into himself. He might as well be making snake jerky. It doesn't feel like anything has changed.

But she knows it has.

They were separated for a year, and in that time Beth learned more about herself than she ever thought was possible. She learned what she could take and what she couldn't. She figured out the things she was willing to do to keep going - to survive - and some of those things were a lot harder to learn than others. Daryl probably learned a lot about those sorts of things too, but he was already a survivor before they were torn apart. An active one, anyway. Whatever Beth is now, she had it buried within in her all along, she just had to find it.

She hears something crackle behind her and turns to see Daryl's silhouette loading slabs of wood onto a fire. He must have collected driftwood from the pier and set it out to dry. The flames are catching fast, and with every added plank they grow higher. She watches them dance in front of the house. They cast shadows against the siding, creating a wall of smoke and darkness like a barrier between her and Daryl. It feels like steel.

After an hour or so of tending the flames and thoroughly cooking the fish, Daryl joins her. He brings a plastic plate for her that's got a huge chunk of white meat and some peas lumped onto it.

"Thanks," she says. "Where'd you get the peas."

He's stuffing a hunk of meat into his mouth with his fingers, but he talks around it. "Found it," he mumbles. "Next door."

Daryl _had_ been busy. He's spent an entire day fishing and collecting wood at the pier, scavenging the other houses for supplies, and gotten caught in a rain storm. His hair was still damp and he smelled like wet dog, but he'd at least thought to change clothes.

"Did it rain?"

He nods, this time unwilling to speak with his mouth full.

Beth stops talking and eats. She was never the biggest fan of seafood, but she's going to have to get used to it if they're going to stay here. The fish is actually good. It has a light taste and doesn't make her feel like she's dunking her face into the ocean, mouth wide open. The peas are… well, they're peas. After she clears her plate, she shifts to get up, but he gives her a look that stops her in place.

"I just need to get a drink," she tells him, hovering in a crouching position.

He turns away and grabs a bottle of water hidden on his other side. He tosses it to her, and it flops against her chest as she catches it clumsily with one hand. "We ain't got no booze," he says.

It's a joke. He's not smiling, and he doesn't look pleased to be doing it, but he's joking.

This makes her sit back down.

"You found this in one of the houses too?" she assumes, taking a swig.

"Yeah. We've got enough for a week if we make it last. I'll check the other houses tomorrow."

She chuckles. "Guess boiling sea water was a waste of time."

His lip twitches. The corner of his mouth almost pulls into a grin, but then it stops.

"It was a good idea," he says.

Silence forms between them. It's thick and palpable. She wants to grab it with her fingers and rip a hole in it to create an opening, but it's like glass. She'd have to punch her way through, and that would hurt. She's not sure if it's worth getting hurt anymore.

"I'm gonna shut my eyes for a while," he tells her, getting up suddenly. "Come get me after a few hours."

She tilts her head to look up at him. "You let me sleep all day. You should take the night."

"I'll be fine."

He walks back to the house, clutching their empty plates in his fist. She hears them snap and fold in on themselves as he crushes them between his fingers.

Daryl doesn't seem to mind getting hurt.

...⧫…

When it starts to sprinkle, Beth grabs the blanket to cover her head and darts back to the house. She just misses the safety of the deck before the sky falls open and releases an onslaught of rain so dense she can feel it in her boots. She throws the blanket onto a lawnchair and rings out the bottom of her sweatshirt. Her hair and face are dry, but everything below the chest is soaked from a massive force of wind that blew rain sideways and up under the blanket. She takes off her shoes and leaves them at the door before going inside.

Daryl is on the couch again. He's on his side, face concealed in the cushions and chest breathing slow steady breaths. He's asleep, and it's the first time she thinks he's actually allowed himself to relax.

Beth quietly tiptoes across the carpet and ventures to the back bedroom. When she found the sweatshirt, she intended to come back to the scene and scope out some more clothes, but she's yet to do it. The first thing she spots is a suitcase in the bottom right corner of the closest, so she drags it out and opens it on the bed. It's stuffed full of beautiful sundresses and cardigans. There's a fresh pair of jeans at the bottom with three pairs of socks, and mixed in with the dresses are a handful of T-shirts and cutoff shorts. It's too bad this person didn't pack for early spring at the beach, or else she would have a plethora of items to choose from. Instead, she pulls out the jeans and one of the thicker T-shirts, along with a pair of socks. She undresses quickly, resenting the chilly air as it hits her damp skin. She pulls on the new clothes and drags a hand through her hair. It's stringy and dry from the salt in the ocean, but she'll worry about that another day. They don't have running water, so finding a proper place to bathe will have to be their next priority.

She notices one of the drawers in the dresser is slightly open, so she gives in to her curiosity and takes a look. There're mens clothes stacked in neat piles on the left, but the right side has been rummaged through. This must be where Daryl found his change of clothes.

Beth's mind starts to wander. Whose stuff was this? Was it a couple that came to Chesapeake Beach on vacation? Were they in the middle of unpacking when they were forced to abandon their stuff and leave in a hurry? Maybe the people here weren't so lucky. If they'd had time to evacuate, they'd surely have taken their suitcases.

She reminds herself that it doesn't matter. It used to. But not anymore.

She clears her head, slamming the drawer shut before realizing she's made a loud noise. She waits with bated breath for the signs of Daryl stirring, but it remains quiet in the living room. He's a heavy sleeper, then. Good to know.

After breaking into a few more secluded nooks and crannies, she finds a small journal with yellow leather binding tucked away by the bedside table. She flares the pages and notices that only the first couple have anything written on them. The words are drawn out in elegant cursive, and it takes a second for her to read it because it's been awhile since she's looked at another person's writing, much less anything this fancy.

' _Be not afraid. The isle is full of noises,_

 _Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not._

 _Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments_

 _Will burn about mine ears, and sometimes voices,_

 _That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,_

 _Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,_

 _The clouds methought would open and show riches_

 _Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,_

 _I cried to dream again.'_

She looks again to the table, and beside the lamp is a pocket-sized copy of _The Tempest_. Beth knows very little about Shakespeare, but her father quoted from him and lesser known poets from time to time. It unnerves her to hear Hershel's voice in her head so clearly. Like a bell ringing in her ears. She forces the journal shut and returns it to its place. She takes the book with her.

When returns to the living room, she lights a few of the candles around the room and makes herself comfortable in one of the armchairs. Daryl rolls onto his back. She can see lines on his cheek from the fabric of the couch, and she fights a smile. When she looks at him again, he's looking back. His eyes are lidded, but they're open, and they're focused on her.

 _Play some more. Keep singing._

The memory sends her heart plummeting into her stomach, and she has to look away. She burrows into the book, and instead of singing, she begins to read aloud. The next time she steals a glance across the room, Daryl's eyes are closed, but she knows he's listening.


	4. Chapter 4 - Fire

_They all take turns with her._

 _She doesn't catch most of their names, but the one face she learns to recognize is Dwight's. He tells her his name - tells her to call him D if she wants to - and then proceeds to make himself comfortable in the corner of the room. He passes the time by carving miniature statues out of wood. It takes him about a week to finish the first one, and when it's done, he leaves it by her bed. Then, he starts on a new one._

 _He whistles to himself as he carves, and it's odd, because he's usually quiet while he's in her company. Beth wonders if the other men assume he's having his way with her. Just like the rest. Do they know that he's never laid a finger on her?_

 _Dwight stops what he's doing and looks at her. She freezes in place, thinking this might be the moment when he finally changes his mind. He's had enough of playing nice, and he's bored. Now, he'll finally do what he's supposed to. Get it over with._

" _He took my wife," he says. Docile. Expressionless. "Everything is his. Or it will be."_

 _She doesn't respond. Doesn't know if she should. But she lowers her head. Bows, in a way, to show she understands. He's referring to Negan: the man that controls everything._

" _He doesn't know about you," Dwight continues. "That's how they're able to get away with it. If he knew, you'd be his, and they wouldn't be able to touch you anymore."_

 _Beth picks at the scabs on her thighs. They harden and reform day after day, and every time they break open, they grow back just a little bit thicker._

 _Dwight shifts and lays his tools on the concrete floor. "I could tell him. I could make it stop. It wouldn't mean freedom, but you'd only have one man to please instead of ten."_

 _She doesn't know if wants him to do it, but she's nodding her head. She's agreeing, without really meaning to. Then she opens her mouth and says, "Okay."_

 _The next morning, Negan personally comes to retrieve her._

...⧫…

She can't pinpoint Daryl's emotions anymore.

It's been a week, and his mood has gone from pissed to hurt to somewhat pleasant, and now… he's ignoring her again. He finally agreed that taking turns on keeping watch wasn't necessary anymore, so now they sleep and eat and stare at nothing together. At the same time. Every day is the same, and every day makes Beth want to scream. Scream at _him_ mostly, but she'd even scream at the wall if she thought it would scream back. Daryl's past the point of showing his anger. He can barely lift his head to acknowledge when she has a question, much less yell at her or throw his hands in the air. She wishes he'd at least say something - call her a bitch if that's what he thinks - but he just sits. Sits and thinks about anything and everything but her.

She might as well be back in that tiny room for all the comfort his presence provides.

The fire outside is nearly out, so Beth stomps on the embers and waits as the last of the glow is extinguished before going back inside. She's been sitting out there for hours, but Daryl never came out to join her. He stopped doing that after the first two days. Now, when he's prepared whatever food they have on hand, he sits at the table and eats alone. She could probably eat with him, but she prefers to be outside. Hearing the waves makes everything less quiet.

Daryl's done eating, but he hasn't left the table. His elbows are propped up on the surface, head buried in his hands. He moves quickly when he hears her come in. Starts clearing the table and shoving his chair out of the way with a loud squeal against the floor.

It's been seven days. They've been squatting in this house for an entire week, and he still can't allow himself to break down in front of her. She's seen it before - when they drank moonshine together and Daryl opened his heart completely to her. He let her crawl in and make a home, and now she's been evicted. He blames himself for choosing her over everyone else, and his punishment is this. He won't let himself acknowledge her, because that would mean admitting his decision. That would mean forgetting the others and moving on.

Beth tosses her plate into the sink. They found real ones with floral patterns, so they've been reusing them instead of wasting plastic. The crash makes him jump, but she only sees it in his shoulders. The rest of him remains controlled. Her eyes are locked on him - on the set position of his jaw as he clenches his teeth. She straightens her back and holds her position.

"You're not going to do this to me again," she demands. "You shut down on me before, and I got it. That's just what you do. But this is different. You blame me, and I _refuse_ to let you keep freezing me out when I just escaped a year in hell."

He stares back and clenches the edge of the counter.

"Well? Say something!"

He doesn't.

"Daryl, _fucking say something_!" She shoves him in the chest, and he stumbles back, landing with a hard thud against the refrigerator door. "Stop looking at me like I ruined your life!"

He breathes in deep, calming himself. She knows he won't retaliate. He'd never harm her physically, but she almost wishes he would. His eyes flare with rage, but his body is still. Tight and ready to pounce, but unmoving.

"I never thought you were dead either," she admits. Her voice is less enraged, but it's unsteady. It begins to shake, and she can feel a wave of tears forcing their way past her walls. She can't make it stop. What is it about Daryl that makes it so hard to hold back the waterworks? "Thinking about you is what got me through it," she whimpers. "I always thought about you. No matter how bad it got, I made myself think of you."

Fear washes over Daryl's face, and she knows she's said too much. It wasn't the point she meant to make, but she can see the thought as it clicks in his brain.

"What'd Negan do to you?" he asks.

She tells him the truth. "Everything."

His leg suddenly extends and kicks at one of the chairs. It tumbles across the floor and lands on its side in the living room.

Beth takes a step back. She can't help but feel a sense of joy at seeing his reaction. It's completely selfish, and it's only going to make things worse, but at least he's doing something.

"It's fine, okay?" she urges. "Let's not talk about that right now."

He shakes his head and speaks hastily under his breath. "They're never gonna forgive us."

"Who?"

He turns on her. Eyes wild and hands flying. " _Who?_ Michonne, Sasha, Rosita… _Maggie_. Your _fucking_ sister is back there with those people, and you wanna know _who_?"

"Daryl…"

"You don't care that we left them, do you?" He waits for an answer, but she doesn't want to give him one. " _Do you_?!"

She holds her breath, then releases it. "I can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because… if I do, then I'll want to go back. And I can't go back."

He absorbs her words and lets them sink in completely before turning away and escaping out the door. It slams behind him, shaking the walls and sending several framed art pieces crashing to the floor. Beth doesn't move. She doesn't blink, and for several seconds she doesn't breathe.

Any second, he'll come back. Just wait right here. And he'll come back.

He doesn't.

...⧫…

 _Negan gives her new clothes first and foremost. He let's her bathe and wash her hair. He shows her to her new room that's bigger and brighter than the one she had before. It's got an actual bed instead of a mattress on the floor, and there are bookshelves to display things even though she's got nothing to fill them with. She places the little wooden carving from Dwight on the top shelf right in the center. It's all she's got, and it's not enough._

 _He's generous enough to give her space to settle in before he comes to visit her for the first time. His presence dominates the room, and she tries to make herself bigger by standing when he talks to her, but he always insists that she sit down. He doesn't know her name because she hasn't spoken. Other than the one word she allowed herself to release when Dwight gave her this out. She still hasn't decided if it's an actual blessing, but so far at least the room is better._

 _Negan tells her about the camp. Says there's plenty of work for everyone, and they all have to do their part. She'll get a job later. For now, she deserves some time._

 _She doesn't want time. She's had too much of it already alone in that cell, so keeping to herself doesn't sound very pleasing. He promises to visit every evening, if he can, and he insures that she'll be protected. His men have been punished for what they did, and it will not happen again._

 _Some nights, he brings her sweets. Cookies or candies he says were found on runs. He stays with her and makes sure she eats them before he leaves, so she always does. She didn't want to at first, but when she denied them, he slapped her. Wondered why she wasn't grateful for everything he had done for her._

" _I saved you from those animals, and this is how you repay me?"_

 _It's the same gift Dawn claimed to have bestowed upon her - 'We saved you, so now you owe us' - but Beth doesn't think Negan will ask her to mop the floors in return for his sacrifice._

 _There's a moment, every night when he leaves, that she considers testing the door. She doesn't know if it's locked, because she hasn't had the guts to get up and turn the knob, but the idea that it could be sends her into a panic. What if it were that easy?_

 _She decides it not. It never is._

...⧫…

That night Beth doesn't sleep.

She lies on the couch and watches the door, waiting for it to open until dawn breaks through the window. He stays gone for the rest of the morning, but around mid-day, when her eyes are heavy and begging to close, he walks in and goes straight to the bedroom.

She sighs and rolls onto her side.

It's okay to rest now.


	5. Chapter 5 - Storm

_When she sees Dwight again, half of his face is scared. It looks like someone pressed an iron to his cheek, melting the skin around his eye and the corner of his mouth. He's here to escort Beth to dinner, and when she first notices his new injury, he shakes his head, silently begging her not to mention it. However, during the brief minute they're alone in the corridor, she pries anyway._

" _Is that because of me?" she asks._

 _He nods once and hums low in his throat._

" _I'm sorry."_

" _Don't be," Dwight begs her. "You're okay, right? Better than before?"_

 _She can't tell him the truth. She can't admit that so far, Negan hasn't proven to be any less despicable than the men who took turns raping her everyday. Negan hasn't had sex with her yet, but he's done other things. Worse things, in a way, that make her hate every part of herself even more than she hates him. Just last night, he sat on her bed and watched as he instructed her to touch herself. He said he only wanted the ones that were willing._

" _There's nothin' wrong with that," he told her. "You like it."_

 _Beth decides it's best to lie to Dwight. She can't let his new scars be for nothing._

" _Yes," she says, forcing herself to swallow the lump in her throat. "Thank you."_

 _Dwight gives her a halfhearted smile, then leads her through a door at the end of the hall. She hadn't noticed before, but now she can clearly see that they're underground. She's been living in a bunker for a month and didn't even know it. In the dining hall, there are several rows of long wooden tables. They're lined with chairs, and most of them are occupied. Men. Women. And even some children. They all sit amongst one another with smiles on their faces and food in their bellies. Beth fights the urge to throw up._

 _Dwight ushers her to the other end of the room where two circular tables crown the space. He points to a chair, and Beth sits down with a cluster of girls that appear to be around her age. Dwight backs away and waits along the wall with two other men._

 _She knows immediately when Negan enters the room, because a wave of silence floods over everyone. It's not an attentive silence; they aren't the slightest bit interested in what he has to say. It's fear. All at once, each of them lowers their body to the floor in a kneeling position. Beth doesn't move, but one of the girls beside her kicks her chair, so she gives in and mimics their actions. She catches Dwight's eye as he lifts his head, and they quickly dart to the girl. Beth shifts her gaze. The girl is pretty with a head full of thick brown hair that's cropped at her shoulders. Her eyes are brown. They match the bruise that's healing below her bottom lid._

 _She looks to be about Maggie's age, and she even favors her._

 _Beth feels a sharp pang in her chest._

 _She stops the memory in its tracks before it can swallow her up._

 _Everyone gets to their feet, and the girl gives Dwight a secret smile. He returns it, and it's much brighter than the one he gave Beth not five minutes ago. It takes a second, but then Beth realizes who she's standing next to._

 _It's his wife._

...⧫…

That night a storm hits the beach.

Thunder rattles the house and lightning flashes across the walls in the darkened living room as Beth tries her best to ignore the monster brewing outside in the sky. Daryl doesn't seem to mind it. He's just as unfazed by the threat of a hurricane than everything else so far, even after their fight in the kitchen. It's like it didn't happen. He's gone and bottled it all back up and now whatever emotion managed to spew its way out is stuck forever. His anger and disappointment in her will rot and spread like death until it kills him from the inside out. But there's nothing she can do about it now. Nothing she can say to change how he feels. The damage is done, and if he can't forget, why should she?

It's hard to fight against the pounding in her heart every time the thunder cracks suddenly and takes her by surprise. She anticipates it, watching for the strikes of lightning that'll signal the next boom, but it still makes her jump. The wind blows a number of objects against the side of the house - mostly the lawn chairs and plastic furniture beneath the deck. It'll all be halfway down the beach by morning, but she doesn't anticipate them wanting any of it back.

Daryl unfolds himself from the couch and stands up. He paces the floor, creating a shuffle against the fluff in the carpet that melds with the pounding of the rain. Beth watches him move. Her eyes follow every step, back and forth. She can't stand the sight of him, but she can't look away. He's like a train wreck, drawing in her attention without her will. She's watching him fall apart, and it's mesmerizing.

Abruptly, he stops. Halts in place. His hands curl, clench, then release at his sides. Then, he turns to her. His eyes fly across the room and land on her face hidden in the shadows. They've only got one candle lit, and it flickers across his body, making him appear as a mirage in front of her. Her mouth falls open. She's ready to speak, but he beats her to it.

"I don't blame you," he says.

Thunder erupts, and a brutal gust of wind slams against the house. It rattles the screen door, and Beth thinks for a second it might blow off, but it crashes back in place.

Daryl is watching her - waiting for her to say something back - but when he sees her loss for words, he drops his head.

"Don't say that if you don't mean it," she manages.

His head snaps back up. "I _don't_ blame you. I blame myself."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Daryl wrings his hands. Waits for the next bout of thunder to pass, then says, "No."

Beth gets up and goes to the window. It's near impossible to make out anything past the smear of rain and the glare from the candle, but she can just see the crashing waves as they reach and recede in the distance. The house sits on a hill, and it's just far enough away from the tide that they shouldn't have to worry about flooding. But the ocean looks angry. No matter how violent the storm decides to be, they'll have to ride it out. Any progress they've made scavenging the beach for supplies will be set back to zero. At least they've got food to last for the next few days.

" _Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground."_

Beth quotes the passage under her breath, and she doesn't think Daryl can hear her, but he responds with a line of his own.

" _I would fain die a dry death_."

He remembers.

She hadn't gotten past Act 1 of _The Tempest_ when she read to him, and after a while, she assumed he'd fallen asleep. But he'd been listening to it all. And it stuck.

"Maybe we should…" He falters. "Try to sleep."

She nods her head and blows out the candle.

...⧫…

 _Beth discovers that Dwight's wife goes by the name Honey. They've been spending more time in groups, and Beth finds that she quite enjoys being in the company of the other girls. More so than being alone with Negan. Honey was the first to properly introduce herself, and so far, she's been the only brave enough to approach her._

" _Why don't they talk?" Beth asks. She's been watching Honey sort through of heap of freshly laundered clothes, and the conversation has drifted from small talk to direct questions. She's deduced that if anyone besides Dwight is going to be honest with her about this place, Honey is the girl._

" _They talk," she says. "Just not to you."_

" _Why?"_

" _You're different. Negan's never had a sweet blonde like you before. You're his new favorite."_

 _Beth cringes, but Honey doesn't notice the shutter that travels down her spine. "Why doesn't anyway try to get out? There's gotta be a way."_

" _Dwight and I did," Honey eludes as she folds a pile of shirts into a neat stack. "Just before you came, actually. We ran for it, but we didn't get far. D stole a bike, but we were stopped before we made it even ten miles." She excessively pats the top of the stack, then breathes deep. "I lost my sister."_

" _I'm sorry," Beth consoles her._

" _Me too. But it's done now. No going back. We tried, and we failed. So, here we are."_

 _Beth narrows her eyes incredulously. "That's it? Just one lousy attempt and you give up?"_

 _Honey pulls together a look of pity that seems familiar to her, and it feels like a slap in the face. She's looking at Beth like a naive child. "We're better off staying put and keeping our heads down than taking anymore risks."_

" _So you're afraid of being caught? Of being punished? I'd rather take my chances and accept the possibility of torment than do nothing. I can handle whatever Negan does."_

 _A couple of the girls swivel their heads in Beth's direction. They gawk her, astonished that she's brave enough to speak their captor's name._

 _Honey frowns. "Whatever he's done to you, there's always more."_

...⧫…

She can't sleep. Closing her eyes is useless against the need to toss and turn. They've been taking turns using the bed and the couch, and tonight Beth is in the living room, wide awake from the sounds of the storm, not to mention the uncomfortable prodding from the springs in the couch. They dig into her back no matter which position she chooses, and after an hour of restlessness, she gives up altogether and retreats to the floor.

Every few minutes, the room lights up with a flash of lightning. She wants to curl into a ball and hide from it all. Everything about the storm feels so big, and right now Beth feels strangely miniscule. She remembers feeling like this before. When she was very young, nights like this made her crawl into her parents bed. She covered her face with the blanket and fell asleep between the strong, reassuring presence of her mother and father. Now, other than those memories, she doesn't find herself craving another person's closeness. Before the jail was destroyed - when she was a different person in a very different time - physical touch was habit. She hugged people. Held their hands. Carried Judith and rocked her to sleep. She braided Maggie's hair and massaged the aching muscles in her father's leg.

She can't imagine being like that again. Just the thought makes her skin crawl. But somehow, despite the lack of want, she's picking herself up off the floor and walking to the bedroom.

Daryl is fast asleep. One arm is tucked behind his head, the other falling lazily over the pillow beside him. His shoes are still on, and he's outside of the covers, as if he collapsed onto the surface without a thought and proceeded to pass out. She can't make out the features in his face, but the shadows around the room create enough dimension for her to see his mouth is parted.

She hovers reluctantly in the doorway, fighting with herself on the prospect of climbing into bed next to him. This has nothing to do with him. She just doesn't want to stay on the couch and be miserable all night. He won't even care. She just wants to sleep.

Just wants to feel another person's presence.

Beth pulls the blanket back and carefully crawls between the sheets. Daryl doesn't stir, but she takes her time shifting around until she's fully tucked in. She waits, holding very still to ensure he hasn't been disturbed. When it seems safe, she closes her eyes. It doesn't take long for her to drift into sleep. The soft cradle of the mattress around her body does wonders to relax her muscles and her mind. She's nearly pulled into an empty dream when she feels Daryl's hand reach across the pillow and rest on top of hers. Even though she's slipping out of consciousness, she knows it isn't in her head. His touch is real. And she doesn't mind.

Beth curls her finger around his thumb and squeezes.


	6. Chapter 6 - Air

_When she sees Dwight's crossbow for the first time, her throat closes._

 _Her chest tightens, pressing against her heart and constricting her lungs._

" _You good?" he asks, nudging her forward._

 _They're on their way back to her room. He's been appointed as her personal escort, and Beth isn't sure if it's because Negan trusts him, or because he doesn't._

" _Y-yeah," she stutters. "Fine."_

 _Dwight purses his lips. "Make sure you eat more next time. Negan ain't gonna tolerate you passin' out on him."_

 _She ignores his request. They're almost to her door, and she needs to know where he got the bow. Needs to know that she isn't crazy. It's the same one. It has to be._

" _Have you always had that?" she questions, nodding to the weapon in his hand._

 _Dwight gives it a good once over, then shakes his head. "Found it."_

 _Beth's stomach lurches. "The man I was with - he has one just like it."_

 _There's a moment of silence that passes between them. She can see it on his face that he's contemplating how much of the truth he wants to divulge. Maybe it's coincidence. Then again, maybe it's not._

 _Dwight acknowledges her comment with a hum but carries on to a new subject. "A big group of us'll be headin' out later this week to scout a community nearby. Negan wants us to keep an eye on them - see what they're made of before we go in." He tightens his grip around the bow. "I'll have Honey come check on you while I'm gone."_

" _Wait." Beth reaches for him, but pulls back instantly. She can't touch him. She pauses for a beat, then says, "His name is Daryl."_

 _Dwight is silent. It's impossible to tell if he's aware she's still referring to the crossbow and its owner, but then he dips his head. Nods once. Closes his eyes._

" _Alright."_

...⧫…

Daryl is gone when she wakes up.

She clenches her fingers into a fist, relishing the faint memory of the hand that settled in hers throughout the night. It'd been so subtle. He somehow knew not to push too far and still give her just enough comfort to keep her calm. Despite the time that lapsed between them, he knows her well - so well that it's probably best he isn't here.

She sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes. It's early, for she can just make out the high yellow glow of the morning sun streaming down the hall. The door has been left ajar, so when she pushes it open, it creaks, acknowledging her presence to the rest of the house.

When she walks into the kitchen, Daryl isn't there. She opens the window to look outside, and the evidence from the storm is tangible. The beach is destroyed. Dunes rise and fall over the hill leaving erratic heaps of sand piled all around the house. She was right about the furniture - it's long gone but sadly not missed.

This is the first morning the ocean hasn't sparkled. Every day when Beth ventures out to take in the crisp ocean air, she admires the pristine blue of the sea in front of her. But not today. Today the water is gray and wild. White crests crashing against the shore. All at once dull and violent.

She spots a figure standing at the edge of the water. He's wearing a jacket - something else he must have found in the bedroom - and it's pulled tight around his neck. His arms are crossed, and he's facing the open ocean, almost as if he's been waiting all this time for it to stretch out and swallow him whole.

Beth remembers that feeling. She knows what it means.

Daryl is weighed down by his thoughts, and he wants to set them free.

She grabs a sweatshirt and slips into her boots, tucking her jeans inside. She treads carefully, nearly falling twice over the hill, but when she finally makes it to level sand, she stops and waits for him to acknowledge her. He does immediately. There's a look on his face that makes her feel hopeful. He's no longer looking at her like she's a basket case. During the night, something must have switched in his brain, and she thinks it switched in her as well. They switched together. On the same page, at the same time.

Beth takes a step forward, and Daryl does the same. They're forced into silence as the salty air whips around them, tossing their hair wildly into their faces and making their skin prickle with goosebumps. Daryl speaks first, and he has to raise his voice against wind in order for her to hear him.

"We have to talk about it," he says. "All of it."

She presses her lips together. Swallows. "Okay."

...⧫…

" _There she is - the switchblade."_

 _Negan greets her cheerily when she enters his quarters. He's taken to calling for her company instead of seeking her out himself. She closes the door behind her, knowing it's what he'll prefer, and he gestures for her to make herself comfortable on the bed, so she does._

" _You remind me of one, you know? A switchblade." He then pulls the very thing he speaks of from the pocket of his trousers and holds it up for her to see. "Right now, you're just like this knife: concealed and delicate. But I expect you've got something sharp hidden inside that delicate little body of yours. Am I right?" He laughs haughtily and places the knife on the bedside table. "You'll reveal yourself soon enough. Then everyone will see how dangerous you are."_

" _I'm not," she disagrees, respectfully. "Everything you need to see is right in front of you."_

 _Negan looks impressed. He nods his head and clicks his tongue. "Good answer." He strides to the opposite side of the room and sits casually in an oversized armchair. "Now how about you get out of those clothes? Hmm? You know the drill."_

 _Beth does as she's told. She moves the way he instructs her, speaks whatever phrases he urges out of her mouth, and never once looks him in the eye. He either doesn't notice or isn't concerned. He's getting what he wants - more than that - and she's not even putting up a fight._

I am a switchblade.

 _She chants it over and over in the back of her mind until he's finished and allows her to leave._

 _Before she goes, she spots the knife on the bedside table. Negan is momentarily distracted, and in the few seconds it takes for him to zip up his pants, Beth swipes it, stuffing it under her bra. She stands by the door and waits for him to escort her out. He caresses her head fondly. It's the most he's ever physically touched her, besides the occasional slap, but even still, the blade pressing into her chest makes her heart pound. Surely he won't try anything new. Not now._

 _To her relief, he doesn't. He predictably tells her he'll see her again tomorrow night, but not the night after. He, like several of the other men at camp, will be leaving on some sort of mission. This is the second leave of absence she's noticed from the group, but unlike the first, she's been waiting for this one. Eagerly. She's been planning it out for weeks. Ever since Dwight returned from their stakeout and reported that there would be an attack on the opposing group soon. Whoever the unlucky community is doesn't matter. Right now, they're Beth's lucky charm. She's going to use this to her advantage and sneak out while most of the men in camp are away, including Negan._

 _When she gets back to her room, she hides the switchblade behind Dwight's little wooden carving at the top of her bookshelf. It's not as empty now since Honey was able to bring her actual books to fill it with. It's only enough to spread out along one shelf, but it's better than nothing. For the past two nights, she's taken to observing them more so than actually reading. She's flipped through their pages once or twice, but she hasn't been able to bring herself to take in the words. Some part of her is afraid that if she does, she'll forget where she is._

 _Though escaping her current reality would be ideal, it isn't smart. She has to stay sharp. Keep her weapon carefully tucked away until the proper time. She is a switchblade, afterall._

...⧫…

Beth tells Daryl the worst of it - everything that happened before the day they found each other, for she plans to save that final story for another time. Throughout her tale, she compels herself to push past every cringe and every shudder of rage that wracks his body. She can see it all over his face. He's enraged and heartbroken. All of the weight she's carried for the past year… he's bearing it. Taking it all. And she couldn't be more thankful.

"How are you okay?"

He's inquiring how it's possible that she's able to sit here so calmly and recount her bout in hell. She's not exactly sure, but it's becoming easier to think about the more time separates her and what happened.

Beth digs her heels into the sand. They're sitting on a cool and solid stretch of beach. In the beat between her breaths, the water rushes toward her then slowly drifts away, as if reaching for something and then changing its mind. The salty air fills her lungs, and within the buzz of the ocean and the wind, she's able to be silent. Daryl is silent too. He must have taken his question as being rhetorical, because he seems to have accepted Beth's lack of an answer. What could she tell him anyway? There's no good reason that she's okay, because she's not. She's definitely not okay, and just because she's not a basket case on the outside, it doesn't mean she isn't falling apart on the inside.

"You're not…" He stumbles across his thought as it falls out onto his tongue. "Did they…?"

She thinks she knows what he's asking, but it surprises her, because she hasn't thought of it before now. Should she have? What does that say if she didn't?

"I'm not pregnant," she tells him. "They weren't supposed to have me, so they were good about covering their tracks."

"What about him?"

She shakes her head. "Negan never did that."

It seems absurd now that she's thinking about it, but in truth it makes the most sense. Negan manipulated her in all the right ways. He made her believe she was safe - made her think she was in control - but she never was. Even when she foolishly believed she had the upper hand, she was severely mistaken.

"I don't get it," Daryl forged.

He knows what Negan made her do, she just told him in excruciating detail, but it must be hard for him to imagine it. In his eyes, Beth Greene would never succumb to being someone's puppet. What Daryl doesn't get is that it was her choice. She chose to do what was necessary to survive, just like he did when he chose to abandon his people.

"There's nothing to get," she challenges. "It's done. I got out."

"But you didn't."

She glares at him, ready to pounce on whatever bullshit theory he's got to throw her way about how she's gotta live with this for the rest of her life and she'll never be _out_ because what happened is inside her. Forever. Haunting her like a layer of wax paper spread thin over her mouth and her nose, clinging so tight that she can't breathe.

But he says nothing of the sort.

He looks at her longingly. Studies her for a beat until she feels like she's being pried under a microscope and has to look away.

Then he states quite plainly, "You're different now."

The word is mundane. _Different._ It feels belittling and simple, but strikingly true.

"What they did," he says, then rephrases, "What _he_ did… it changed you." Daryl buries himself in his coat and pulls his knees to his chest. "You lost something. They took it, and I don't know if I can help you get it back."

"I don't need you to," she snaps. "I need for us both to just accept it and move on."

His brow furrows. "You don't believe that."

"Yes, I do. It's what has to happen. We don't get to start over, Daryl. We move away from it, and we don't look back."

"I can't."

"You have to try," she begs. She's tearing up again. _Goddammit_ , Daryl Dixon. "Please. I have to forget about it. I have to forget, or it's going to kill me." She places a hand over her heart. "Here."

Since they first got here, she's been trapped inside her memories like a slave. Locked inside an old dilapidated house, like the moonshine shack. Full of hate and anger and leftover abuse. She wants to burn it down. She needs to set it all on fire and watch the flames lick away at every painful thought - every subconscious trip into the past. She's desperate for it to catch and burn.

 _I am a switchblade._

Daryl grabs her hand and pulls it away from her chest. He holds it tightly within his and refuses to let go, letting her know without words that he's here. He's not going anywhere despite his lack of confidence on the matter. Whether he can help her or not, he's here.

He's right here.


	7. Chapter 7 - Salt

They find a bathhouse about a mile down the beach just on the other side of the pier. Daryl takes note of the area, making sure their safe haven has remained untouched before he allows either of them to venture inside. The water is pumped from a well that pulls from the ocean, so even the miniscule amount of filtration isn't enough to take away the taste of salt in her mouth as Beth drowns her face under the stream. It doesn't matter. She'd bathe in a bucket of pure sodium chloride if it meant cleansing the dirt from her skin. She's almost gotten used to feeling filthy by this point, but the shower feels too good to pass up.

She brought a change of clothes with her, so she eagerly strips from what she's wearing and tosses everything into a pile on the wet floor. Daryl is doing the same, but she hasn't bothered to look over her shoulder and check. They both give an unspoken agreement to provide one another with a bit of privacy. Not that she would care. Beth no longer has any shame about her body. Too many men have had their hands on her. What difference would Daryl's eyes make now?

Beth uses her fingernails to scrub the dirt from her pores. It's layered on, thick and grimy, but it comes off easily after the third rinse. She dips her head and let's her hair soak. Daryl found tiny travel sized bottles of shampoo in one of the suitcases, so she squeezes out a single drop into her palm. She lathers it, trying to conserve as much of the suds as possible before lowering her head back under the water and washing it clean.

She's turned around in order to get the hair at top of her neck, but when she opens her eyes, she doesn't expect to see Daryl looking back at her. He's not making eye contact, but he's definitely looking at her. It takes her a minute to register the exact part of her body that he's so mesmerized by, but then it hits her. He's not looking at her… he's looking at her scars.

That part of the story was purposefully left out, because she didn't think it was necessary. Daryl can understand that, can't he? He has scars of his own - ones he's never talked about, but Beth has always known are there. She's never made him tell her how he got them, because it isn't her place to wonder. Those scars represent a part of Daryl's past. They walked away from it - left it behind at the moonshine shack in a pile of smoldering rubble. This is different, though. Beth hasn't had the opportunity to burn her past to the ground. And even though she's already begged him to move past it, she knows that this won't be easy for Daryl to let go of.

His eyes hover over the mark across her chest. It starts at her left collarbone, covering the swell of her breast and disappearing under her arm. The skin is raised and warped and her nipple has been discolored, all because of the burn. Daryl looks haunted. The ghost of her wound has run away with his imagination, and she can see him mentally playing out all the scenarios in which she could have received it. She watches as the names race across his mind. Was it Negan? Dwight? Someone else?

Beth's first instinct is to fold her arms across her chest and cover the burn, but she thinks better of it. Instead, she straightens her posture, rolls her shoulders back and lifts her head. Daryl swallows an awkward lump in his throat, and when their eyes finally lock, he quickly averts his gaze. She steps toward him, and he flattens himself against the wall of the showers. He's nervous and uncomfortable, but it's not just because they're naked. Daryl has never been the best at confronting emotional situations. He's clearly upset by what he sees, but he can't say it out loud. Not unless she makes him.

Beth stands directly in front of him. She can see the beginnings of an erection forming between them, but that isn't important. Neither of them are concerned with whatever hidden desire might be lingering in the back of their minds. Sure, she's thought about it. In the great amount of time they've spent alone together, the idea of something more has definitely crossed her mind. She wouldn't be opposed if he's had similar thoughts, but right now there are things to discuss - matters of a higher priority - and Daryl is so distinctly aware of this that he doesn't even try to hide his arousal.

She takes his hand, and before he's able to properly protest against it, she places it over her marred breast. She spreads his fingers over the surface, letting them feel the raised and damaged parts of her skin. That's all it is now. Just skin.

Daryl bites his bottom lip. He fumbles, attempting to say something that might make a difference, but then he stops, because he know it won't. No matter what he says, it won't change anything. It won't mend what's been broken. It won't smooth what's already been scarred.

"It's okay," she tells him. "It doesn't even hurt anymore."

He moves his index finger across her flesh, and even though it's harder to feel, it sends a shiver down her spine. He breathes her name, and it draws out in a desperate air. Then his forehead falls against hers. They stand there for a long time, waiting for something to happen, but as she closes her eyes and relaxes, she realizes it's already happening. They don't need words. They don't need actions. They just need to be.

The water is getting cold, and Beth can feel the beginnings of gooseflesh along her arms. Daryl's shivering, but she thinks it might be for different reasons.

"We should go," he says.

They separate and dry off. They get dressed, but this time there's no need for privacy. On the way back to the house, Daryl places a hand at the small of her back. She takes comfort in it, knowing that even the smallest of touches mean everything coming from him. They've made progress. And that's more than enough.

...⧫…

 _Negan discovers the knife is missing only an hour after she leaves, but he waits until the middle of the night to confront her about it._

 _He comes to her room while she's asleep, and Beth is startled awake by the sudden inability to breathe. He's got his hand over her mouth. She desperately sucks in air through her nose, but her panic is making it hard to really get a good amount of it into her lungs. It's dark. She can't see anything. She tries to force her eyes to focus, but they've started to water because she seriously can't breathe. It's him. There's no doubt about it. No one else would have the balls to come into her room like this._

" _I knew you'd show yourself," he whispers. His voice is slick with pride. Laced with unspoken threats. He shushes her. "It's okay. Calm down. Calm down. You knew this was coming."_

 _The ridiculous amount of calm that's issuing from him makes it that much harder for her to muster any of that for herself. He's right. She did know this was coming. Part of her knew he'd snap on her eventually. But still, how far is he going to go?_

 _Negan whistles, as if to call someone, and someone actually responds. Another man comes into the room, illuminated by the light outside of her door, and she can just make out that he's carrying something fairly large. He hands it off to Negan who grabs the handle of it with the fingers of his free hand and lets the object hover next to Beth's face. She can feel heat coming off of it, whatever it is, and now she's scared. A vision of Dwight's face jumps into her head, and she bites down on one of Negan's fingers. He yanks it back but reflexively slaps her. The sting on her cheek stuns her enough that he's able to pin her down. She's stuck. He's got at least a hundred pounds on her, so there's no chance to wriggle free. The other man is still standing there. He's casually waiting for the job to be done with his hands on his hips. Beth takes a guess and fears the weapon in Negan's hand is probably an iron. She cringes and braces for the hot metal to make contact with her face, but that's not what he's aiming for._

" _It would be a waste to scar that pretty face of yours, so I'm gonna do you a favor by not using this the way I typically would. I can't let you go without punishment. You know that, right? This has to be done."_

 _She stops squirming and tries desperately to calm her shaking muscles. Then, he rips open her shirt. Understanding what he means to do, she braces herself, but nothing can prepare her for the incredible pain she feels as the scalding surface of the iron sears her flesh. He presses it down firmly on her left breast, and she screams into his hand. It's unbearable. It's torture. He makes sure to leave a permanent mark, and after an entire minute goes by, she thinks she can feel her own skin melting. It has to be melting. She can smell it. When he finally lifts the iron away from her chest, she nearly vomits at the sensation of tearing flesh. The other man then conjures a jug of cold water and pours it over the burn. There's a single second of relief, but then the pain rushes back._

 _Negan stands up and hands off the iron to his assistant. They both leave without another word. Beth absorbs the pain as much as she can. She lies very still with her hands at her sides. She can't move, or she fears it will hurt even worse. Before she's able to fully process what's happened, the door opens again. This time, it's Honey._

 _She sits on the bed and turns on the lamp. Beth squeezes her eyes shut, forcing out the light and the tears. Honey takes Beth's hand._

" _You have to come with me," she instructs her. "We need to soak that in cold water before I can clean it."_

 _Beth shakes her head, but even as she does, Honey is pulling the covers away from her legs. She helps her sit up, and another rush of pain hits her hard and fast. Beth whimpers, and Honey takes her hand again. She leads her down the hall to the wash room. Beth has never been in here before, because Negan usually allows her to take showers in his private bathroom, but something tells her he won't allow her that luxury after tonight. Honey turns the faucet under one of the showers and makes sure it's cold before helping Beth under the stream. She lowers her to the floor, and Beth sighs. The temperature is shocking at first, but after a few seconds, the cold is enough to numb the burn. The rest of her body begins to shiver, so Honey places a towel over Beth's legs. They wait ten or fifteen minutes, and then Honey decides it's been long enough. She turns off the water, but Beth remains where she is._

 _There's a first aid kit sitting by the sink ready and waiting. Honey must have known this was coming. Negan told her what he was going to do. She was part of the plan. The aftermath, anyway. After the dirty work is complete, it's her job to clean up the mess. Beth wonders how many other girls she's had to do this for. Beth wonders if she's had to do this for herself._

" _I was stupid," Beth mutters, her soft words reverberating against the shower walls._

" _No," Honey disagrees. "Whatever you did, it was worth the risk. You have to take chances, right?"_

 _Beth can hear the echo of 'I told you so' in her attempt at comfort, but it's not surprising. "Is this it?" she asks. "You said there's always more. Is this what you meant?"_

 _Honey nods once and carefully pats Beth's chest with a moist towel. She squeezes out a thick ointment onto her fingers and begins methodically rubbing it into the burn._

 _Beth hisses and attempts to distract herself from the pain. "Did he do it to you?"_

 _The girl presses her lips together in a tight line. "No. But he has other means of punishment."_

 _What else could he do? The possibilities are endless, she knows it's true, but Beth tries not to count the ways in which Negan could make her life a living hell. She needs to escape. This, above everything else, proves that she can't stay here forever. She has to find a way to get out… even if it kills her._

...⧫…

The house is dark when they return from the beach. Daryl lights a candle on the kitchen table to give off some light, and Beth drops her old clothes into the sink. She'll scrub them and hang them out to dry later. One night won't make a difference, and she's tired.

Daryl hovers behind her, and his presence gives her solace. She knows he's lingering as close as he is just to give her peace of mind. He's making sure she knows he isn't afraid. He's seen everything now, and he isn't running away. He's not going to hide or retreat into himself like before. He's present, and he's here.

"You want me to, uh… fix us somethin' to eat?" he offers.

"I'm not hungry," she declines. "I think I'm just gonna go lie down for a while."

He drops his head. Stuffs his hands into his pockets. "Alright."

She doesn't intend to do it, but she finds herself resting a hand on his cheek. He nudges into it, and she smiles. "Thank you."

"For what?"

He lifts his eyes, and she brushes her thumb across the stubble on his chin. "For not making me talk about it," she says. "I promise I will. Just not right now."

They're both breathing heavily. Something is preventing her from removing her hand from his face, and even after he places his hand over hers, she doesn't feel like she could let go if she tried. He's looking at her with yearning. His lips part, and his body shifts closer to hers. He wants to kiss her. And she wants to let him.

"Go ahead," she whispers. "Do it."

"No," he refuses. "You're in control."

It's not because he's unsure. It's not even because he's nervous or afraid of what she'll do. He's letting her make all the moves, because he knows it's what she needs. It's the only way she'll ever be able to move past the terrible things that were done to her. If she kisses him now, it'll be her decision. Her choice.

So she does.

She presses her lips tenderly against his, and she keeps them there. She lets the soft caress of his mouth hold her in place before allowing herself to breathe. Then she does. She breathes him in, and he falls into her. Deep and powerful like the waves. His lips fold around hers. It warms her, and at the same time, it burns like salt in an open wound. But she knows it's what's necessary to heal. She knows the pain is only temporary. Soon, she'll be numb, and everything that hurts will be nothing but scars. Leftover wounds with hardened flesh that'll be ten times harder to puncture than before. His kiss will become her callus.

The power goes to her head. She forces him against the counter and pries apart the buttons of his shirt. He lets her do it, standing limp and willing like she's undressing a doll, but when his chest is bare, he moves to kiss her again. She clenches his jaw between her fingers and forces his mouth to her neck. He sucks greedily on the skin at the base of her throat and she gasps. He's doing everything she wants, and she wants him to be rough. It's messed up, and it's probably the absolute wrong thing to do, but she desperately wants it. She needs it, and she doesn't know why.

"Daryl, I need you to fuck me."

She feels him stiffen. He stops what he's doing and grips her waist, then he lets go.

"Please," she begs. "I'm telling you to."

Daryl lets out a deep groan in the back of his throat, then he lifts her off her feet. He carries her bridal style into the living room and drops her cautiously on the floor. He's careful not to restrain her as he hovers over her body, removing her shorts and panties. As he tosses them onto the couch, she removes her shirt. They're both stripped down in seconds, and she instinctively tugs at his hair to bring him down to her level. There's a second of hesitance as he scans over the burn on her chest, but then he moves. He shoves himself inside her, and she cries out loud.

" _Yes_. Yes."

He pants into her ear. "Godammit. _Shit_ , Beth."

"Harder," she pleads. "Harder. Faster."

He does as he's told, slamming into her again and again while bracing himself on the palms of his hands. It feels good. It feels better than she thought it would, but that scares her. He fucks her, and it hurts in the best possible way. It's what she wants. She's in control. Not like before. Daryl's not like the other men with their pitiful erections and grimy fingers all over her skin. He's thick and firm, and every thrust hits in all the right places. The muscles in his arms are solid as they flex on either side of her head. He's taking her, but secretly it's Beth that holds all the power. She could stop this if she wanted. She could say no, and he would stop. He wouldn't hesitate. But she needs him to do this. Needs it desperately because if she can't feel this, she's afraid she won't be able to feel anything anymore. She'll be numb forever.

"Harder," she cries. "Daryl, _please_."

She doesn't realize she's crying until Daryl slows his thrusts. He's doing the opposite of what she's begging for, but it's okay. He's wiping the tears from her eyes as he continues to move inside her, unhurried and steady. She's still begging for him to do more, but she knows he's not going to. He's holding her. Kissing her. Whispering in her ear as she continues to cry.

"It's me," he tells her. "It's me. I'm here. Beth, it's me."

She hides her face in his neck and sobs. Her entire body shakes with rage and heartache. And all he can do is hold her. All he can do is continue to move. Not fucking her, but making love. Because he _loves_ her. She knows he does. And it stings. Like salt in a wound, his love will be what heals her, so she lets it burn.


	8. Chapter 8 - Earth

_It hurts to breathe._

 _Every tiny movement of her chest as she takes air into her lungs feels like razors clawing at her flesh. Like it's still being ripped away. Whatever's left of it._

 _Honey brings breakfast to her room. It's not much - just a slice of stale toast and some canned fruit - but it's more than what Beth can stomach at the moment. She nibbles at the crust of her bread and watches Honey as she observes the books on her shelf._

" _Have you read them all yet? I can get you more."_

 _Beth shakes her head. "I haven't touched them."_

 _Honey sits at the end of the bed and crosses her ankles in a polite manner. "That was a waste."_

" _I'm sorry," Beth says. "I just haven't worked up to it."_

 _She hasn't worked up to much of anything. Speaking is a big enough chore, and she thinks this conversation might exhaust her completely. Beth doesn't want to ask her to leave, but she doesn't want to make small talk and pretend that what happened isn't a big deal. If Honey is going to be here, she has to help._

" _When you tried to leave," Beth begins, "what did you do?"_

 _Honey looks at her unapologetically. "Think about what you're asking."_

" _I don't have to. Just tell me."_

 _There's a flicker of pride in Honey's eye, but she blinks it away and faces the books again. Picking up a copy of Lord of the Flies, she flips the pages and bites her bottom lip. "We left while everyone was away. But I expect you've already considered that."_

 _Beth had considered it. The gears in her head started turning the second Dwight hinted at their upcoming absence. Negan plans to send a hunting party to a nearby community, and he'll be taking most of his muscle, which means the compound will be less secure. There'll still be a great deal of stealth required on her part, but Beth is sure she can manage to sneak out undetected._

" _You should know something," Honey adds. She closes the book and hugs it to her chest. "Dwight told me he knew the man you were asking about. He didn't want you to know, but they think Daryl is in the community Negan plans to take."_

 _Beth's throat closes. There's a thick gathering of saliva on her tongue, but she can't swallow it. It nearly chokes her. "He's here?"_

 _Honey nods._

" _But… how? Who is he with?"_

" _He's in a place called Alexandria, and it's run by a man named Rick."_

 _This time Beth does choke. She tries to sit up but the pain in her chest shoves her right back down. She gasps and coughs, but the movement makes it hurt even more._

" _Calm down," Honey urges. "It's okay. Dwight doesn't think he's in trouble. They seem like good people. Well…" She cocks her head to one side, considering her previous statement. "They did attack one of our compounds. They murdered a bunch of our men in their sleep, but I'm sure it was retaliation for something Negan did."_

" _How long has this been going on?"_

" _Since before you got here. Negan's never encountered a group that fights back like this before. It's made him… it's set him on edge. More than usual. The other girls have had their fair share of his outbursts. I'm honestly surprised it took this long for him to do this to you."_

" _I have to go." Beth shoves the blankets aside and eases herself off the bed._

 _Honey doesn't stop her physically, but she tries to talk her into reconsidering. "You have to have a plan," she insists. "You can't just leave. If you're going to do this, you need to be smart about it."_

 _Beth strikes back. "Then help me."_

 _The other girl buries her head in her hands and sighs. Then, she stands up, feet planted firmly on the ground, and says, "Okay."_

...⧫…

She feels strangely warm. There's a breeze blowing against her cheeks, but the rest of her body is comfortable - tucked away under something extremely soft and cozy. When she opens her eyes, she realizes it's a blanket. Daryl must have pulled the comforter off the bed in the other room and draped it over them after she fell asleep. He's still next to her on the floor. His back is to her, so she absentmindedly traces the lines of his scars with her index finger. He moves, but not away from her touch. She lets her forehead fall against the place between his shoulderblades and breathes him in. His skin smells like ocean water.

He murmurs and groans, then rolls over to face her. His eyes are the clearest blue. They burrow into her like crabs in the sand and clamp on tight to her heart. How had she not seen it before? All those times he looked at her. It's the same look he's giving her now, she just never understood it for what it was. What it is.

"I love you," she tells him as they hold each other's stare.

Daryl blinks then breathes deep. "I've always loved you."

Her heart flutters and soars. It's what she wanted to hear, but she never expected it. Never thought he actually wanted her the way she dreamt it. They'd known each other for so long, yet most of that time had been spent keeping distance between them. The closest they'd been was after the jail had fallen, but they were separated before ever knowing what could have come out of that bond. Then everything went to shit. She never stopped thinking about him, though. The thought of him was the one thing that never changed about her. How she felt. And what she wished. That had remained untouched, because not even Negan could have taken that away from her. He scared her pride, beat her body, abused her confidence, and maliciously manipulated her way of thinking. But that hope of seeing Daryl again was always there. Even when it sometimes faded, it never completely vanished.

But how had she come to deserve this? What great comic plan allowed them to find one another and have this moment? They'd done everything wrong, yet somehow they got this one thing right.

"Why?" she questions.

He furrows his brow and looks at her - really looks at her - with astonishment. "How could I not?"

"Because I'm broken," she says. "I always have been. But now it can't be fixed."

"I can fix you."

"What if you can't?"

"I'll keep tryin'."

"And then?"

He shakes his head. "And then nothin'." He pulls her to him, wrapping his arm around her waist and pressing his hand firmly against the small of her back. "Beth, I chose _you_. I didn't get it before, but I get it now. You come first, because I love you. And I can't change that."

Beth closes her eyes and feels his lips press a tiny kiss against her temple. She buries her face in his neck and melds into his touch, completely succumbing to his embrace. She lifts her head and finds his lips. She touches her mouth to his, softly and full of affection. He drinks her in like wine, and she feels drunk with his words. With his touch and his kiss. Daryl clouds everything with thoughts of bliss and ecstasy, and even when she can't see past it, she knows he'll guide her safely to the other side. He'll be with her until everything is clear, and then he'll still be there. Guiding her every step of the way on solid ground.

...⧫…

 _Honey has a tight grip around Beth's upper arm. Her hand is beginning to feel numb, so she shakes the girl off._

" _Let go of me," Beth says. "You're cutting off my circulation."_

 _Honey scowls, but she's as white as a sheet, so it's hard to mask her underlying panic._

 _Negan set out with a group of twenty men at dawn, and shortly after, Honey appeared at Beth's door ready to make their move. They crept down the hall and past two sets of guards patrolling the sleeping quarters before stopping a few yards from the closest exit. They've been waiting at least ten minutes for the bald man keeping watch to switch shifts with the next guard. After that, it's Honey's job to create a distraction._

 _Beth taps her fingers anxiously against the side of her leg. One tiny flaw in the plan is all it'll take to ruin everything. They've been banking on the next guard to be a man named Lewis. He's a tall, wiry guy with red hair and little concentration. His ADD tends to get the best of him, and Honey has sworn that her ability to sweet talk will be enough of a diversion to let Beth slip through the doors unnoticed. But what if it isn't Lewis? What if something changes and someone else has to take his place?_

 _Beth fumbles with the switchblade in her pocket. Negan never took it back, and she wonders whether or not it was a strategic play on his part. She intends to use it if she has to, but secretly she hopes she doesn't._

 _A minute later, Lewis shows up right on schedule and Honey makes her move. As Beth slides past them, Honey gives a subtle nod to wish her luck. Beth doesn't return the gesture. She's already running as fast as her feet will carry her. Her shoes smack against the flattened dirt of the tunnel floor and propel her forward. Into the darkness and through to the other side. Earth surrounds her on all sides. She can smell the deep layers of rock and mud and living things. She has to make it to ground level before the guard outside the gate takes his position. Time is ticking away against her, and as she pushes on, she thinks of the trees. It's a strange thought, but it's the one clue that will tell her she's escaped from underground._

 _Once she sees the trees, she'll be in the clear._

 _The path ahead of her gets brighter as she moves along the exit route. Eventually, she hears what sounds like rain, and with a new burst of energy she advances at top speed. The tunnel ascends at a slight angle, and then she reaches a latter. She climbs. Pulls herself up and over the edge. When the full light of the day hits her face, she's momentarily blinded. She squints and shields her eyes against the sun, and then she sees them._

 _The trees._

...⧫…

"You alright?"

Daryl watches her closely as she eases herself into a sitting position. She's a bit sore, but only because it's been so long. She felt like this after the first night in Negan's compound. That was a completely different sort of pain, but still, it reminds her of it all over again, and she can't help but retreat back into a state of dismissal.

"I'm fine."

Daryl follows her movements with his eyes. He grabs her arm and stops her from getting up off the floor. "Did I hurt you?"

"No." She shakes her head fervently. "No, Daryl. You didn't. I wanted you to do it."

He drops his hand, along with his head. "Is that because of what happened?"

"I don't know."

She really doesn't understand why she needed him to be rough with her. It's not because she enjoyed the pain. Or the feeling of not having control. In a sick way, she thinks it might be because it's the only reference she has. She'd never been with anyone like that before. Not because of any particular reason - she just never felt it was the right time - but it kept her from taking things further with Jimmy or Zach. It kept her from taking the initiative and pursuing something with Daryl when they spent all those weeks alone together. In the moonshine shack. In the funeral home. In the woods.

She regrets it now. If only she'd been a little braver - if she'd had the nerve to just reach out and kiss him when they'd been sitting at the kitchen table - maybe those men wouldn't have been her first. She can't even remember which one _was_ the first. Not that it matters. They appear in her memory like a giant blob of smoke, floating about as one massive cloud of filth and vexation. They were all the same.

Except Dwight.

She wonders about him. Will he and Honey be punished for her escape? She can't think about that possibility, because if she thinks about them, she has to think about the others. She has to think about Maggie… and everyone she left behind.

"Don't ask me to do that again," Daryl says as he sits up next to her. He pulls his knees to his chest and props his chin between them. "I can't be that for you."

"I don't want you to be."

"Then why did you want it?"

Beth squeezes her eyes shut, closing his persistent questions out of her mind for a single second, then opens them. And she tells him the truth. "I didn't want it. I just needed to know there was a difference."

He drops his knees and reaches for her. "There's a big difference, Beth. I ain't them."

"I know."

"Then, why? Help me understand."

A word pops into her mind, and she's saying it before really knowing what it has to do with Daryl's plea. "He called me a switchblade," she says. "He said I reminded him of one, because I hid how dangerous I was."

Daryl is looking at her quizzically, but she knows it's only because he doesn't know where she's going with that statement. And honestly, neither does she. Until she asks her next question.

"Do you think I'm dangerous?"

He immediately shakes his head. "If _my_ girl is a switchblade, it's because she's smart. And brave. And strong. She keeps it all hidden, because she knows when to use it." He grabs her chin and forces her to lock her eyes with his. "You are _not_ dangerous. You're a force. And _that's_ the difference."


	9. Chapter 9 - Fog

"They stole my bike."

Beth and Daryl are sitting by the embers of the previous night's fire. The fog that hovers over the edge of the beach creates a silvery haze above the waves. It makes everything feel extremely close, yet still so far away.

"When did you first meet them?" she asks, running her fingers lazily along the outside of Daryl's thigh.

His legs are sprawled out in front of him in the sand so that she can rest her head easily in his lap. They've been watching the fog since before it moved in, and in the time it took to reach the shore from where it hovered way out in the middle of the sea, Beth's body has managed to calm. She shook when she washed herself with a damp cloth in the bathroom. Everything about that after-sex routine made her think of Negan. He always made her wash herself whenever the show she put on for him was finished. Sometimes she thought about refusing. What would he think if she let his cum dry and crust off of her skin like glue? He wouldn't be able to deny the evidence. But never did it. She at least had kept some shred of respect for herself.

Those details haven't come out in the conversations she and Daryl have been diligently sharing. They've been taking their time with their words, making sure what comes out is the utter truth. And the final straw. She's telling him now so she won't have to tell him again. And he's been attempting to do the same. It's his turn to talk, and Beth is genuinely interested in knowing how he managed to find himself in Virginia a mere thirty miles away from Negan's compound.

"There was a herd," Daryl explains. "Rick made a plan to lead them away, but we all got separated. I ran into some men and was forced into the forest. Dwight was with two girls. They'd been running from Negan's group, but I didn't know that at the time. They thought I was one of them. Then, even after they found out I wasn't, they still took everything. My crossbow. My bike. They were just afraid, but then…" Daryl falls silent. Beth can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench as he shifts to one side, awkwardly attempting to fidget his way out of what he's about it say. But he realizes he can't, so he says it anyway. "He killed a woman named Denise. She was a doctor. The only doctor we had."

It didn't seem like something Dwight would do. The Dwight Beth had known didn't pursue unnecessary violence. He helped her. Kept her safe. Gave her companionship and protection in a place of evil and isolation. And Honey. Did she know what her husband did when he left the compound?

"I don't understand," Beth admits. "Why would he do that?"

"He was aiming for me. Was gonna shoot me with my own bow."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he fuckin' confessed it. Right to my face not even minute after Denise's body hit the ground."

Beth sits up and faces him. "But why would Dwight wanna kill you?"

She knows the answer before she's finished asking the question. She remembers the look on Dwight's when she mentioned Daryl's name. It was after he and Honey tried to escape. They failed to get away, but they'd managed to come back with souvenirs. Daryl's crossbow was a link between Beth and the outside world. Dwight knew that, but only after he discovered the connection. Afterwards, he stopped seeing her. Honey spent more alone time with Beth than Dwight did, and whenever they met in passing he made sure to keep their exchanges short and sweet. It meant nothing to her then, but it means everything now.

Especially after what Honey did.

...⧫…

 _Negan smacks her hard against the cheek for the third time._

 _He changes it up by using the back of his left hand - the one that's got brass knuckles, unlike his right that merely hit with the force of his own bone strength. This hand has copper backing his swing, and it hurts like hell. She can feel the burn and hotness of blood bubbling around the newly formed cut just under her eye._

" _She warned me you'd try to find them," Negan hisses, smacking her for a fourth time, without the brass, just to get the point across. "Honey said you knew the group we were watching."_

 _It was a trap. All of it was a trap, but Beth still can't wrap her head around it. Why did Honey send her out into the wild just to be caught and trapped like an animal. She knew Beth wouldn't get far, but still, she set her free. Was it just to make a point?_

" _I get it," Negan continues. "You're attached. You hear your people are only a few miles away, your emotions start running haywire. Hell, for all I know, it could be that time of the month. No controlling that shit. Hormones all outta wack. Bitches do crazy shit." He lowers himself to her level and focuses his attention completely on her face. Her eye that's beginning to swell shut. Her jaw that's pressed so tightly together she might chip a tooth. "Lucky for you, this is only your second strike," he says. "And I've generously decided to give you three. It's standard, after all. But if you fuck up again, I won't accept it."_

 _Beth spits on the floor. The blood running down her face has leaked into her mouth and it tastes like metal._

 _Negan smirks, then straightens his posture to full height. "Since you're so desperate to see your people, I'll allow you to watch the show." He gestures to a man at his right. "Put her in the van."_

...⧫…

Daryl's calling her name.

She doesn't realize it, because she thinks it's part of a dream. But then she understands that she's not asleep. She's been awake the entire time. The sand between her toes and the distant sound of the waves in her ears - it's all part of her conceivable reality.

"Beth."

She makes eye contact with him, then directly cuts it off. "He wanted me."

"What? Who?"

"Dwight," she clarifies. "He knew I'd wanna go back to you if I knew where you were, but he wanted me to stay. And I think Honey knew about it too. That's why she sent me away."

Daryl's throat bobs with a thick and dramatic swallow. He's confused. Beth is too, but not because she doesn't understand. She gets it now: the _who_ , the _how_ and the _why._ But not _when_. Was Dwight aware of how much he cared for her from the first moment he sat with her in that cell? Were those miniscule, silent encounters the beginnings of something that she was an unwilling participant of? How long did it take for Honey to catch on? Was she just as dumbfounded then as Beth is now? Or had she always known?

"Beth, what're you talkin' about?"

"I tried to escape," she says. "That's how I ended up in that van. Honey told me how to get out, but she knew I'd get caught. It was all a trap."

Daryl shakes his head, as if physically clearing out the clutter Beth has just dumped into his brain will solve a damn thing. "But they let you go."

"Dwight did," she corrects him. "I don't know why, but it had to be because of you. If he let you go too, it's because he wanted us to find each other. But if that was the case, he must have had a change of heart."

She's speaking it all to herself now more than to Daryl. He's not the one that really needs to hear it. Unraveling the endless amount of twisted knots in their heads won't help him find his truth, but it'll ease the stress of trying to decipher her's. Dwight cared for her. He protected her by choosing between the lesser of two evils - or, at least, what he considered to be the lesser of the two - and for that she knew his devotion was true. He'd been selfish by keeping the information about Daryl to himself, and maybe he saw that. Maybe, in the end, he understood that the choice he'd made was only for his gain, and if he truly cared for Beth, he had to let her go.

How noble. How utterly brave.

"None of that matters anymore," Daryl presses. "They ain't here. It's just me and you now. Whatever they did to get us here, it don't mean shit."

She looks at him incredulously. "It means everything."

...⧫…

" _I had to make you understand."_

 _She can hear Honey's unreleased words in the back of her mind. They chip away at her subconscious even though they were never spoken aloud._

 _There are no windows in the van, but there is a tiny crack between the doors that lets in light. Artificial light. It's dark now, and the only source of illumination is streaming from the headlights of Negan's trucks. She heard them line up one by one and cut their engines, blocking in whatever prey they intend to capture. Just like her - they'll be caught in a trap with nowhere to run. She wonders if Daryl will be with them? Maybe he was smart enough to go out on his own. He was always a loner. But loyalty is his weakness._

 _Several hours go by. She can hear the murmurs of men walking to and from the cars, but it's never enough to make out full sentences. She tries pressing her ear against the flat surface of the door, but that only fills her ears with the echo of her own breathing. It's useless. If Negan wanted her to watch, then why can't she see anything?_

 _Abruptly, one of the doors pops open. Just an inch, but it causes her to fall forward and clumsily catch herself with both hands on the cold metal floor. She waits a moment, then leans carefully into the opening with one eye closed._

 _A voice startles her._

" _Keep quiet."_

 _It's Dwight. He's standing guard outside the van. Must have opened the door, too._

" _You shouldn't watch this," he says quietly, facing the opposite direction, "but you need to know."_

 _Beth doesn't respond. She listens to his warning and keeps quiet, but she wants more than anything to say thank you. To do something so he will understand what this means to her. So, she taps once on the door with her fingernail. And that's enough._

 _Dwight was right, though. She shouldn't have watched it._

 _She should have kept her eyes closed._

...⧫…

They go back into the house.

The fog lifted enough to allow a small bit of sunlight to cast its rays along the beach and warm their skin. After a while, it got to be uncomfortable in their heavy clothing, so they ventured inside. Daryl offers to go on a run for more supplies, but Beth urges him to stay. She doesn't want to be alone. Not after all that talk.

And she doesn't want to talk anymore.

"Take off your clothes," she instructs.

His eyes go dark. His posture turns rigid. Timing was never their strongsuit, but it feels right to be asking this of him now. She still doesn't quite know how she feels about what happened between them. It was good, but she hadn't seen the other side of it. She hadn't stood in the place that Negan had, telling someone else what to do, watching with hopeful eyes. She hadn't felt complete control, because Daryl had stopped it. He didn't want to fuck her, but she still thought about it. She still needed to fully understand it.

Under his jacket is a thin white T-shirt, so it's nothing for him to strip from it. It's easier, and far quicker than the button-downs she's used to him donning. He unzips his jeans. Kicks off his boots and steps from each pant leg while keeping his focus on her eyes. She watches every move he makes, down to the motion of his thumbs as they hook under the elastic waistband of his boxers and pull them down. He stands there for several seconds looking extremely uncomfortable. Then, he clears his throat and waits for her next command.

She doesn't give it to him just yet. First, she matches his lack of clothing and strips from her attire. When she's fully naked, he moves to step toward her, but she raises her hand to halt him in place. He freezes. There's more than ten feet of space between them, but she can feel the icy claws of disappointment gripping at his ego.

"Touch yourself," she tells him.

He wrinkles his brow. Shakes his head.

"Please."

He does as he's told. His hand grips the base of his cock lightly, and she watches as it slowly hardens in front of her eyes. His fingers slide up to the tip, then back down again, all while keeping his gaze locked on her. Not her body, but her eyes.

Her heart is beating a thousand miles an hour. Is this what Negan felt when he watched her do the same thing? Is it power that she feels coursing through her veins, or satisfaction? It's possible they go hand and hand.

His fingers squeeze and start a rhythm. Daryl's lips part involuntarily, and she can see his chest rising and falling at a faster rate. There's a tingling in the base of her abdomen. She squeezes her thighs together to feel some sort of pressure, but it does nothing to relieve the ache now spreading between her legs. This is really turning her on, and she hates herself for it. She was supposed to be stronger than this. She isn't like Negan. What he did was different. She meant to prove that, but her experiment is failing. She can't help herself, for her own body is betraying her.

"Stop," she demands.

He's on the verge of reaching his climax, and it takes half beat after she says the word for him to actually stop. He releases the hold on himself and waits.

"Fuck me."

Daryl punches the wall. There's a glean of sweat on his forehead that's making his hair cling to his face. Resting with his palms flat against the now damaged wall, he hangs his head in shame. His back is glistening too, and it makes his scars glow.

"Is this just a game to you?" he asks, head still bent low. "Trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together in that fucked up head of yours so everything will make sense again?" He lunges for her unexpectedly, but she steps back. Waving his hands in the air like a cornered cat, he yells, " _What do you want from me, girl?_ Hmm? Getting me to fuck you like they did ain't gonna rationalize what happened to you." He turns on the spot. "Don't ask me to do it again."

It might be pride, or it might just be pure stubbornness, but she refuses to listen to his argument.

"I said, _fuck me_ ," she repeats with a tone of finality.

He moves on her quickly, but this time she's got nowhere to go. He backs her against the opposite wall and pins her hands on either side of her head. She can feel his erection pressing noticeably against her stomach. A nice little reminder of what this is all about.

"And _I said_ , don't ask me to do that."

Beth revels in the space between their lips. There's only about a centimeter separating their mouths from connecting, and the hot air within the in-between feels like fire. She thinks about saying it one more time, just to piss him off - just to see if it's even possible for him to be pissed at her - but then she caves.

"Then make love to me instead."

His breath clouds her mind like fog as he exhales in solace.

Then he releases her hands and kisses her.


	10. Chapter 10 - Sun

He loves her.

She knows he does.

Right now, that feeling has never been more clear.

"I think we should go back."

She knows he's surprised. She's surprised to hear herself saying it, but it's true. She believes it now when she didn't before. All she needed was time, and that's what he gave her. It's the single most important thing anyone's ever done for her, and that's why she feels confident going back now.

He strokes her hair in long methodical waves. He's become very good at that - it's another thing that's changed. His comfort in her has grown, and it takes nothing for him to reach out and touch her in the most casual of manners. She likes the way he touches her. No matter how or why, it's different than everything that came before. It doesn't scare her. His touch has become like the sun whenever she's desperate to escape the shade.

Making love wasn't anything like she thought it would be. It was genuinely like creating something that only the two of them could share. He started at her feet, falling to his knees as if preparing to worship. And in a way it was exactly that. He was adoring to every part of her - all the curves and mounds. All the slopes and slants. All the dips, and all the dives. Using his mouth and his hands in caresses and tender holds, he made her look at him through every movement, never breaking eye contact, because he needed her to see that it was him.

" _Beth, I love you_ ," he whispered. " _I love you so much_."

Everything he did brought her closer and closer to what they were fabricating. It was everything she wanted, and not even close to what she thought she deserved.

He's holding her still. A long while has passed since they finished, but it's hard for him to let go now that they've come this far. She's glad for it, because she doesn't want him to. Never again. Not in a million lifetimes.

"What d'you mean?" he asks, referring to her previous statement.

She says it again, but this time her voice shakes. "I think we should go back." She's second guessing herself even though she was perfectly confident in it before.

"What changed your mind?"

She gets a sudden rush of deja vu. They've been here before, but the other way around. She remembers asking him the same question after his sudden decision to plant roots at the funeral home.

 _Maybe we stick around here for a while._

The answer to her question then is the same answer to his question now.

The same word.

The same three measly letters.

 _You._

But she responds in the same manner that he did - shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly, as if it's not a big deal. As if he didn't alter her entire view of the universe. She tries to shift out of his arms, but he holds her tighter.

"You were right," she admits.

He hums softly to himself. Closes his eyes. "What if I've changed _my_ mind?"

"You haven't. I know you."

"Yeah," he muses. "I guess you do."

She smiles into his shoulder. It's a reflex. Being this close has brought back all of the small, uncontrolled motions that come with trusting another human being - another person that becomes a part of your soul. She's felt connected to Daryl from the moment he first visited her in her cell at the jail. It wasn't a particularly loquacious conversation, but she saw everything about him in that moment that she needed to see. He'd come to tell her about Zach. They'd lost another member of the group, and even though he'd expected her to cry - an act that made him extremely uncomfortable to be in the presence of - he came to her anyway. To tell her face to face. To show some sort of humanity in light of such terrible tragedy. It was the first time she'd touched him, and she remembers feeling the immediate sensation of safety.

Just like this.

"I get it now," she says.

It's a statement that weighs heavily on her heart. She truly didn't understand it before, but she knows why she can't hide away in the beach house forever. Staying here won't save anyone. And most importantly, it's no way to save herself.

Daryl kisses her temple and breathes in the scent of the ocean in her hair. "What if there's nothin' to go back to?"

"There is. There has to be."

He doesn't agree, but he doesn't dismiss her faith completely. He simply nods his head, showing acknowledgement more than consensus. "Then we'll go," he tells her. "Whenever you're ready."

...⧫...

 _She can't move._

 _It's over, but it still hasn't sunken in._

 _They lost Glenn… and Maggie - what's going to happen to the baby? Her sister isn't well. Beth only just realized she was pregnant, and now… it seems as if something is wrong. She overheard their conversations. Heard every little thing Negan had to say about the group, one by one. And yet, it still doesn't feel real._

 _Beth finally does move when her body involuntarily slumps to the floor of the van. She allows her head to collapse against the door without care or concern. Fuck whatever noise she makes. It doesn't matter now. Her family is broken, and they're all under Negan's thumb. What hope could they possibly have of escaping?_

 _Then the door opens._

 _Most of the cars have cranked their engines back to life and are heading south back towards camp, but a few remain parked and scattered about the area. Her family is gone. They've been loaded into the cars and shipped off like meat for slaughter. A few of Negan's men are keeping watch while the rest of the group load up and vacate the premises._

 _The show is over. Nothing to see now._

 _Except for Dwight. Beth has about a three second gap to take in his face, and then everything goes black. He's tossed something over her head to keep her blind, and he's dragging her out of the van. Her feet hit the ground but only just long enough to gain a sense of balance. Then they're walking at a brisk pace away from the noise. The chatter of men fades into the distance and soon all Beth can make out are the bugs chirping in the trees and the crunch of debris under their feet. Dwight is leading her away right under the nose of everyone._

 _What the hell is he doing?_

 _Once they're far enough away, Dwight grants Beth the gift of sight. It takes a minute to focus, but when the darkness comes to light she's able to make out the details of his face._

 _He commands her into action with one simple word. "Go."_

 _She's frozen for the amount of time it takes her brain to register what he's asking of her. Then she's off. Darting into the woods without looking back. She wants to - she wants to see the face of the man that freed her one last time - but she refuses. Because if she does, she'll won't be able to move forward. And she has to. She has to leave all of it behind._

 _Each step is more liberating than the last. She keeps going, deeper and deeper into the unknown until she begins to lose her way. She needs to find the road. She needs to make sure she's traveling in the opposite direction of the compound, but there's no sun to guide her. Panic slowly creeps under her skin. She doesn't have a weapon because Negan finally decided to swipe her knife before slapping the shit out of her. The dead will come, and she won't have a chance of fighting them off. Running is her only option, so she continues to sprint. Harder and harder against the forest floor._

 _And then he's there. Like a vision from one of her dreams._

 _There's no way to make him out from such a distance, and the nighttime shadows cover any clue that might identify him undoubtedly, but she knows it's him. She feels it deep in her bones, and the feeling is so overwhelming that it halts her. Stops her dead in her tracks._

 _He hears her immediately. The tracker of the group. Their guardian angel._

" _Daryl?"_

 _He doesn't come to her at first, because he isn't sure whether or not to believe the girl in front of him is really there. But then he tosses his hesitation aside and grabs her. He looks her over, then his eyes redirect past her shoulder, debating something important in the back of his mind. He meets her gaze._

" _You're alive."_

 _His words leave her breathless. It's really him. This is happening._

 _She decides right here and now that this is it. If she runs away with him, there's no going back. She wanted him - she prayed every night that he would find her, and now he has - so in turn she must give up everything._

 _She can see he's thinking over the same idea. In order to get away, they must leave the others behind. If he chooses her, he can't have anyone else._

 _For a split second, she fears his decision hasn't landed in her favor, but then he takes her hand and says, "Let's go."_

 _So they run._


End file.
